Junk at Full Sail

Marvellous painting of a junk at full sail, Anglo-Chinese School, probably late 19th century, artist unknown…

River East, River West

Aube Rey Lescure’s River East, River West (Duckworth) comes highly praised and is set in 2007 Shanghai and 1985 Qingdao…

Shanghai, 2007: feeling betrayed by her American mother’s engagement to their rich landlord Lu Fang, fourteen-year-old Alva begins plotting her escape. But the exclusive American School – a potential ticket out – is not what she imagined.

Qingdao, 1985: newlywed Lu Fang works as a lowly shipping clerk. Though he aspires to a bright future, he is one of many casualties of harsh political reforms. Then China opens up to foreigners and capital, and Lu Fang meets a woman who makes him question what he should settle for…

A mesmerising reversal of the east–west immigrant narrative set against China’s economic boom, River East, River West is a deeply moving exploration of race, identity and family, of capitalism’s false promise and private dreams

Lin Yutang’s The Gay Genius: The Life and Times of Su Tungpo, 1948

Lin Yutang’s 1948 The Gay Genius: The Life and Times of Su Tungpo (William Heinemann)….

From the Poetry Foundation website:

Su Tung-Po (1037–1101) was a Chinese poet, writer, artist, and statesman during China’s Song era. Born to a family of literati in the present-day Sichuan province, he is also known as Po Su Shi, Su Shih, and Su Dongpo. He published under the pseudonym Dongpo Jushi.

Su Tung-Po spent most of his life employed in various governmental positions. His poetry and prose often put him at odds with ruling factions, and he was twice banished from different provinces. These banishments and the small stipends allotted to government officials encouraged him to take up Buddhist meditation. His poetry is infused with Buddhist philosophy, as well as with Confucianism.

Today, Su Tung-Po’s oeuvre is valuable for the quality of its poems, its contributions to 11th-century Chinese travel literature, and its details about the Chinese iron industry.

Peter Fleming’s The Siege at Peking, First Edition, 1959

Peter Fleming’s retirement project was a history of the Boxer Uprising…The Siege at Peking….

The first edition was published by Rupert Hart-Davis in 1959.

“Fleming’s comprehensive account of The Battle of Peking, fought on 14th–15th August 1900, in which the Eight-Nation Alliance relieved the siege of the Peking Legation Quarter during the Boxer Rebellion. Foreign diplomats had been besieged by Boxers (a secret society named after the martial art of Chinese boxing) and the Imperial Chinese Army. Liberators from the alliance included European superpowers (British Indian Infantry, French Indochinese artillery, Russian Cossacks and German troops), joined by the Japanese army and United States Marines.”

Yang Shuang-zi’s Taiwan Travelogue

Yang Shuang-zi’s Taiwan Travelogue (Graywolf press), translated by Link King….

May 1938. The young novelist Aoyama Chizuko has sailed from her home in Nagasaki, Japan, and arrived in Taiwan. She’s been invited there by the Japanese government ruling the island, though she has no interest in their official banquets or imperialist agenda. Instead, Chizuko longs to experience real island life and to taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear.

Soon a Taiwanese woman – who is younger even than she is, and who shares the characters of her name – is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come true. The charming, erudite, meticulous Chizuru arranges Chizuko’s travels all over the Land of the South and also proves to be an exceptional cook. Over scenic train rides and braised pork rice, lively banter and winter melon tea, Chizuko grows infatuated with her companion and intent on drawing her closer. But something causes Chizuru to keep her distance. It’s only after a heartbreaking separation that Chizuko begins to grasp what the “something” is.Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, this novel was a sensation on its first publication in Mandarin Chinese in 2020 and won Taiwan’s highest literary honour, the Golden Tripod Award. Taiwan Travelogue unburies lost colonial histories and deftly reveals how power dynamics inflect our most intimate relationships.

The International Settlement Thanks Edward Charles Pearce

What do you give a man who was Chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council for 7 years (1913-1920), serving throughout the tricky years of World War I. Edward Charles Pearce went to Shanghai in the 1880s as a tea taster rising to become a partner in Messrs Ilbert & Co. He then served on the Municipal Council for which he was give a bunch of honours including being granted the Freedom of Shanghai (which I think was a rare honour) and was awarded the Chinese government’s medal – the 4th Class Order of Chiaho.

And he was awarded this lovely Arts & Crafts gold & silver Casket from “The Ratepayers of the International Settlement of Shanghai to Edward Charles Pearce Esquire 27th March 1918”.

China Books Review Podcast on Wallis Simpson and the State of the China Books Market

Talking Her Lotus Year, 1920s China & some thoughts on the state of the “China book” market now with Alec Ash on the China Books Review podcast (courtesy of The Wire China & the Asia Society NYC) ….

click here to listen…

ChinaRhyming says good riddance to X – now on Bluesky

Twitter/X just got too nasty, horrible and depressing for me so i’m well out of it and away from the nutters, tankies and fascists. But I’m now enjoying my experience and interactions on books, history, old China photos etc at Bluesky – @chinarhyming.bsky.social